Qatar World Cup stadium to include classrooms, offices

One of the first stadiums to be built for the Qatar World Cup will include classrooms, offices and conference rooms, Qatar Foundation has revealed.

Education City Stadium also will serve as a community centre and host local and regional sporting tournaments, as the centre of the city’s health and wellness activities, the foundation’s monthly magazine said.

Shaped like a jagged diamond, the 45,350-seat stadium will be “glittering by day and glowing by night”.

Following the World Cup, the stadium will be reduced to 25,000 seats to be used by athletic teams from the surrounding universities.

“It will be a highly visible, living example of sustainability in action for everybody who lives, works and studies at Education City and beyond, and our vision for it is to inspire people not just to great sporting achievement but to live healthier and more sustainable lives,” project manager Eid al-Qahtani said.

Qatar is building eight stadiums for the event, which is still facing controversy over whether to be held in summer due to the Gulf state’s propensity for temperatures of up to 50 degrees. FIFA is expected to make a decision on the timing later this year.

It had initially said it would build 12 stadiums but it was revealed in April the number would be cut by one-third due to rising costs and delays.